When U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld first started
talking about military "transformation," the generals and admirals
fairly salivated at the thought of the new toys they'd be able to
buy.

But it turns out Rumsfeld and President George W. Bush had
something else in mind. They wanted to move past the Cold War
methods of fighting against big armored divisions and the armies,
navies and air forces of rival countries to meeting new challenges,
such as fighting insurgencies, finding weapons of mass destruction
and protecting the homeland.

There might be a few new toys, but the emphasis would be on
transforming the organizations, and creating more realistic
training and operational practices. These reforms wouldn't be quite
as glamorous, but they'd be far more effective at preparing our
armed forces for the challenges they're most likely to face.

Ever since the main military action ended in Iraq and
Afghanistan, Rumsfeld has turned full-force to this transformation.
As leaders prepared for the upcoming congressionally mandated
Quadrennial Defense Review of missions, force structure and
resources, he ordered them to come up with how they'd respond to a
four-part "threat matrix" he wants the military to address:

Responding to conventional militaries.

Meeting irregular challenges, such as terrorism and insurgent
campaigns.

Taking on catastrophic dangers, such as weapons of mass
destruction.

Repelling disruptive threats from military competitors who
develop new or unexpected capabilities, such as computer
warfare.

He wants to move troops away from areas where they're no longer
needed and to set up training facilities and initiatives that
address the threats in this matrix. Nowhere is this emerging line
of thought more apparent than in U.S. military involvement in
Europe.

Rumsfeld plans to cut in half the troop strength in Europe
because, with the Soviet threat gone, we don't need as many troops
there any more. And he wants to use the facilities already there to
build up these capabilities we'll need in the future.

Already, the Army has established a global training facility in
southern Germany designed to meet these emerging needs. The Army
converted more than 60,000 square kilometers in and around its
Combat Maneuver Training Center to look, sound and smell like war
zones in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Urban training sites were outfitted as Iraqi towns and Bosnian
villages, complete with streets filled with civilians and
shopkeepers, reporters and rioters, as well as the improvised
explosive devices so familiar to forces in Iraq. These mock
villages even have buildings dressed out as Shia mosques or Kosovar
churches, all designed to help prepare units for the real-world
missions about to come their way. They've even added cave complexes
that can be used to hide insurgents or material for weapons of mass
destruction.

With every active theater from Kosovo to Afghanistan within easy
reach, trainers frequently visit war zones to learn how the enemy
is changing, as well as the current military, political, economic
and social conditions. They then rush back to duplicate the new
conditions, right down to bringing trunks full of Iraqi and Afghan
clothes to outfit those whose job it is to mimic civilians and
terrorists.

Finally, the Combat Maneuver Training Center has added
technology that allows trainers to record the unit's every action,
provide computer simulations to expand the kinds of missions and
forces that can participate and even deploy the network so that it
can be dispatched to other training areas in Europe.

In Rumsfeld's view, the remaining ground forces in Europe (about
four brigades) must be able to fight anywhere in the world with all
kinds of allies, old and new; to work with a variety of assets,
from special forces to Air Force fighters; and to help the other
units that come to Germany for training to experience the different
geography, diverse cultures, allied militaries and unique training
opportunities not readily available on U.S. soil.

The training center in Germany addresses every quadrant of his
threat matrix and does so in a place that can be used to build
strong bridges to new and old allies and that is within reach of
some the world's most troubled trouble spots.

But more must be done. The capabilities of this training center
must be duplicated in other hot spots, such as Asia and South
America, to provide the global training base to match the global
positioning of forces. This would enable America not just to send
forces anywhere in the world but to provide the right training in
the right location to suit any mission.

That wouldn't represent the wish lists Pentagon leaders probably
dreamed of when Bush and Rumsfeld started talking about
transformation. But it would represent actual transformation.